Ethnic groups in Europe

The ethnic groups in Europe are the focus of European ethnology, the field of anthropology related to the various ethnic groups that reside in the nations of Europe. According to German monograph Minderheitenrechte in Europa co-edited by Pan and Pfeil (2002) there are 87 distinct peoples of Europe, of which 33 form the majority population in at least one sovereign state, while the remaining 54 constitute ethnic minorities. The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of 770 million Europeans.[1]

There is no precise or universally accepted definition of the terms "ethnic group" or "nationality". In the context of European ethnography in particular, the terms ethnic group, people (without nation state), nationality, national minority, ethnic minority, linguistic community, linguistic group and linguistic minority are used as mostly synonymous, although preference may vary in usage with respect to the situation specific to the individual countries of Europe.[2]

Overview

There are eight peoples of Europe (defined by their language) with more than 30 million members residing in Europe. These eight groups between themselves account for some 465 million or about 65% of European population:

About 20–25 million residents (3%) are members of diasporas of non-European origin. The population of the European Union, with some five hundred million residents, accounts for two thirds of the European population.

Linguistic classifications

Of the total population of Europe of some 730 million (as of 2005), over 80% or some 600 million fall within three large branches of Indo-European languages, viz., Slavic, Italic (Romance) and Germanic. The largest groups that do not fall within these three are the Greeks (about 12 million) and the Albanians (about 8 million). Beside the Indo-European languages there are two other major language families on the European continent: Turkic languages and Uralic languages. The Semitic languages that dominate the coast of the northern Africa as well as the Near East are preserved on the Malta islands, a Mediterranean archipelago. Basque is a linguistic isolate unrelated to any other languages inside or outside of Europe.

Family of Indo-European languages

There are approximately 641 million residents in the family of the Indo-European languages divided into linguistic branches and peoples.[5]

other European 7%, North African 7%, Sub-Saharan African, Indochinese, Asian, Latin American and Pacific Islander.[47] French with recent immigrant background (at least one great-grandparent) 33%.[48][49]

The beginnings of ethnic geography as an academic subdiscipline lie in the period following World War I, in the context of nationalism, and in the 1930s exploitation for the purposes of fascist and Nazi propaganda so that it was only in the 1960s that ethnic geography began to thrive as a bona fide academic subdiscipline.[70]

The origins of modern ethnography are often traced to the work of Bronisław Malinowski who emphasized the importance of fieldwork.[71] The emergence of population genetics further undermined the categorisation of Europeans into clearly defined racial groups. A 2007 study on the genetic history of Europe found that the most important genetic differentiation in Europe occurs on a line from the north to the south-east (northern Europe to the Balkans), with another east-west axis of differentiation across Europe, separating the "indigenous" Basques and Sami from other European populations. Despite these stratifications it noted the unusually high degree of European homogeneity: "there is low apparent diversity in Europe with the entire continent-wide samples only marginally more dispersed than single population samples elsewhere in the world."[72][73][74]

The total number of national minority populations in Europe is estimated at 105 million people, or 14% of Europeans.[1]

The member states of the Council of Europe in 1995 signed the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. The broad aims of the Convention are to ensure that the signatory states respect the rights of national minorities, undertaking to combat discrimination, promote equality, preserve and develop the culture and identity of national minorities, guarantee certain freedoms in relation to access to the media, minority languages and education and encourage the participation of national minorities in public life. The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities defines a national minority implicitly to include minorities possessing a territorial identity and a distinct cultural heritage. By 2008, 39 member states have signed and ratified the Convention, with the notable exception of France.

Ethnic minorities of non-European origin

Europe is also where a multiplicity of cultures, nationalities, and ethnic groups not indigenous to Europe reside. The majority of them are recently arrived immigrants in the 20th century, usually from former colonies of the British, French, and Spanish empires.

Populations of non-European origin in Europe (approx. 22 - 29+ million, or approx. 3% to 4%+ [depending on definition of non-European origin], out of a total population of approx. 728 million):

North Africans (Arabs and Berbers): approx. 5 million, mostly in France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. The bulk of North African migrants are Moroccans, although France also has a large number of Algerians.

Sub-Saharan Africans (many ethnicities including Afro-Caribbeans and others by descent): approx. 5 million but rapidly growing, mostly in the UK and France, with smaller numbers in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Portugal and elsewhere.[84]

South Asians: approx. 3 - 4 million, mostly in the UK but reside in smaller numbers in Germany and France.

Romani (Gypsies): approx. 4 or 10 million (although estimates vary widely), dispersed throughout Europe but with large numbers concentrated in the Balkans area, they are of ancestral South Asian origin.

Indians: approx. 2 million, mostly in the UK, also in Germany and smaller numbers in Ireland.

Pakistanis: approx. 1,000,000, mostly in the UK, but also in Norway and Sweden.

Amerindians and Inuit, a scant few in the European continent of American Indian ancestry (often Latin Americans in Spain, France and the UK; Inuit in Denmark), but most may be children or grandchildren of U.S. soldiers from American Indian tribes by intermarriage with local European women. In Germany, the Native American Association of Germany founded in 1994 as a socio-cultural organization estimates 50,000 North American Indians (descendants) live in the country.[citation needed]

European identity

Historical

Medieval notions of a relation of the peoples of Europe are expressed in terms of genealogy of mythical founders of the individual groups. The Europeans were considered the descendants of Japheth from early times, corresponding to the division of the known world into three continents, the descendants of Shem peopling Asia and those of Ham peopling Africa. Identification of Europeans as "Japhetites" is also reflected in early suggestions for terming the Indo-European languages "Japhetic".

The first man that dwelt in Europe was Alanus, with his three sons, Hisicion, Armenon, and Neugio. Hisicion had four sons, Francus, Romanus, Alamanus, and Bruttus. Armenon had five sons, Gothus, Valagothus, Cibidus, Burgundus, and Longobardus. Neugio had three sons, Vandalus, Saxo, and Boganus.

European culture

European culture is largely rooted in what is often referred to as its "common cultural heritage".[89] Due to the great number of perspectives which can be taken on the subject, it is impossible to form a single, all-embracing conception of European culture.[90] Nonetheless, there are core elements which are generally agreed upon as forming the cultural foundation of modern Europe.[91] One list of these elements given by K. Bochmann includes:[92]

Berting says that these points fit with "Europe's most positive realisations".[94] The concept of European culture is generally linked to the classical definition of the Western world. In this definition, Western culture is the set of literary, scientific, political, artistic and philosophical principles which set it apart from other civilizations. Much of this set of traditions and knowledge is collected in the Western canon.[95] The term has come to apply to countries whose history has been strongly marked by European immigration or settlement during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Europe.

Religion

Since the High Middle Ages, most of Europe used to be dominated by Christianity. There are three major denominations, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox, with Protestantism restricted mostly to Northern Europe, and Orthodoxy to Slavic regions, Romania, Greece and Georgia. Also The Armenian Apostolic Church, part of the Oriental Church, is in Europe - another branch of Christianity (world's oldest National Church). Part of the Catholicism, while centered in the Latin parts, has a significant following also in Germanic and Slavic regions, Hungary, and Ireland (with some in Great Britain).

Judaism has a long history in Europe, but is a small minority religion, with France (1%) the only European country with a Jewish population in excess of 0.5%. The Jewish population of Europe is composed primarily of two groups, the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi. Ancestors of Ashkenazi Jews likely migrated to the middle of Europe at least as early as the 8th century, while Sephardi Jews established themselves in Spain and Portugal at least one thousand years before that. Jews originated in the Levant where they resided for thousands of years until the 2nd century AD, when they spread around the Mediterranean and into Europe, although small communities were known to exist in Greece since at least the 1st century BC. Jewish history was notably affected by the Holocaust and emigration (including Aliyah, as well as emigration to America) in the 20th century.

Pan-European identity

"Pan-European identity" or "Europatriotism" is an emerging sense of personal identification with Europe, or the European Union as a result of the gradual process European integration taking place over the last quarter of the 20th century, and especially in the period after the end of the Cold War, since the 1990s. The foundation of the OSCE following the 1990s Paris Charter has facilitated this process on a political level during the 1990s and 2000s.

From the later 20th century, 'Europe' has come to be widely used as a synonym for the European Union even though there are millions of people living on the European continent in non-EU states. The prefix pan implies that the identity applies throughout Europe, and especially in an EU context, and 'pan-European' is often contrasted with national identity.[100]

^In the 2001 census in England and Wales, white residents could identify themselves as White Irish or White British though no separate White English or White Welsh options were offered. In Scotland, white residents could identify themselves as White Scottish or Other White British. In the census of Northern Ireland, White Irish and White British were combined into a single "White" ethnic group on the census forms.

^"Immigration is hardly a recent development in French history, as Gérard Noiriel amply demonstrates in his history of French immigration, The French Melting Pot. Noiriel estimates that one third of the population currently living in France is of "foreign" descent", Marie-Christine Weidmann-Koop, "France at the dawn of the twenty-first century, trends and transformations", Summa Publications, Inc., 2000, P.160

^" In present day France, one-third of the population has grandparents that were born outside of France", Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow, "Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't be Wrong: What makes the French so French", Robson Books Ltd, 2004, p.8

^A. Kumar, Encyclopaedia of Teaching of Geography (2002), p. 74 ff.; the tripartite subdivision of "Caucasians" into Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean groups persisted among some scientists into the 1960s, notably in Carleton Coon's book The Origin of Races (1962).

^In the old manuscripts of the Italian rite, in Daniel Goldschmidt's print and in references in early literature such as Shibbole ha-Leket. Today's minhag benè Romì follows the Sephardic rite in using keter for musaf only and nakdishach for all other services.

^Cederman (2001:2) remarks: "Given the absence of an explicit legal definition and the plethora of competing identities, it is indeed hard to avoid the conclusion that Europe is an essentially contested concept." Cf. also Davies (1996:15); Berting (2006:51).

^K. Bochmann (1990) L'idée d'Europe jusqu'au XXè siècle, quoted in Berting (2006:52). Cf. Davies (1996:15): "No two lists of the main constituents of European civilization would ever coincide. But many items have always featured prominently: from the roots of the Christian world in Greece, Rome and Judaism to modern phenomena such as the Enlightenment, modernization, romanticism, nationalism, liberalism, imperialism, totalitarianism."

^This is particularly the case among proponents of the so-called confederalist or neo-functionalist position on European integration. Eder and Spohn (2005:3) note: "The evolutionary thesis of the making of a European identity often goes with the assumption of a simultaneous decline of national identities. This substitution thesis reiterates the well-known confederalist/neo-functionalist position in the debate on European integration, arguing for an increasing replacement of the nation-state by European institutions, against the intergovernmentalist/realist position, insisting on the continuing primacy of the nation-state."